Newsletter - Page 980 of 2139 - Carolina Sportsman

Redfish will pull up on flats and tail on high water, even during the early spring.

Don’t forget the early season flood

Spring can force anglers to break out every trick in the book to get redfish to cooperate, in part because they’re spooky from the heavy winter fishing pressure. […]

Pautzke’s Fire Dye will turn live minnows from their natural color to a handful of bright colors to attract gamefish — without otherwise affecting the bait.

Technicolor minnows will outproduce naturals

Dan Kibler

The fishing industry is overflowing with innumerable attempts to reinvent the wheel. The slightest modifications in lure shape, material or color is heralded as “new and improved” and placed on the end cap at your tackle shop, while little attention is given to live-bait improvement other than keeping it alive. […]

Light planer boards like Water Bugz are more suitable for pulling light lures and baits for crappie.

Gaining a little weight isn’t always bad

Dusty Wilson

While most folks stress about putting on a little weight, guide Brad Taylor said that when pulling planer boards for crappie, adding a little weight can go a long way. […]

Shooting under docks to get to hard-to-reach crappie is normally best done with a round-head jig that flutters when it falls.

When to tip a jig with a minnow

Phillip Gentry

Jigs are great lures for loading the boat with crappie, but sometimes you’ll increase your chances of hooking slabs by tipping those jigs with live minnows. […]

Guide Dave Hilton said that weather fronts and the accompany high winds can make keeping your boat in postion to fish individual brush piles very difficult, so he’ll often adjust his fishing locations to avoid the wind.

Beat the weather for boat control

Terry Madewell

Weather systems are a recurring consideration in March, and guide Dave Hilton said it’s simply something anglers must anticipate and plan strategy accordingly. […]

Depending on the amount of freshwater in the Cape Fear River and its tributaries, saltwater fish are liable to show up in all kinds of areas.

Tidal, salt, fresh and brackish waters

Jerry Dilsaver

The rivers around Wilmington, N.C., are all tidal and have a significant tide change. The boundary between Coastal and Inland Waters in the Cape Fear is the downriver side of the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge. […]

Wilmington’s three rivers

Jerry Dilsaver

The area around downtown Wilmington, N.C., is home to three rivers — the Cape Fear, Northeast Cape Fear and Brunswick — plus, the Black River flows into the Cape Fear River about 10 miles upriver. […]

Know how your shotgun shoots

Jeff Burleson

When hunters shoot a deer with buckshot or with a shotgun slug and the deer doesn’t drop on the spot, they will start to looking for a blood trail. But turkeys are quite different. When a turkey is shot in the body, it will typically take off like a jet, leaving nothing behind but a cloud of dust. […]

New gear reviews

Phillip Gentry

A continued quest for the perfect rod for dock-shooting led Mississippi-based B’n’M Poles to design and create the SharpShooter Deluxe 6. This rod has been field tested by B’n’M’s pro staff for several years before release on the market two years ago. […]

Crappie/Bream